Which is better? Ignorance, Confusion or Wisdom?
Ignorance is bliss. This statement is still around, which I take as evidence for its truth. Even God wanted Adam and Eve to be ignorant of Good and Evil. Also, idiots are generally happier, not being burdened by the knowledge that the world is, generally speaking, suffering-inducing.
Knowledge, at least the search for it, seems to make, at least, philosophers and scientists, happy. Of course, what they find - suffering is real - is depressing.
Confusion, to me at least, is extremely painful. The failure to make sense of things is a cause of a great deal of mental anguish. Yet, if you look at the whole of life, competing theories, contradictory results, beliefs, standards, etc., it seems confusion is the general situation. Yet, people seem happy - perhaps secluded in their own private bubbles of coherence.
So, here we have three choices. Every one of us must be in, at least, one of these three states. My question is, which is better?
Personally, I'm totally confused and it's excruciatingly painful but then I see life, everybody, and it looks like everybody is in the same condition and yet, they're happy and I'm not.
Knowledge, at least the search for it, seems to make, at least, philosophers and scientists, happy. Of course, what they find - suffering is real - is depressing.
Confusion, to me at least, is extremely painful. The failure to make sense of things is a cause of a great deal of mental anguish. Yet, if you look at the whole of life, competing theories, contradictory results, beliefs, standards, etc., it seems confusion is the general situation. Yet, people seem happy - perhaps secluded in their own private bubbles of coherence.
So, here we have three choices. Every one of us must be in, at least, one of these three states. My question is, which is better?
Personally, I'm totally confused and it's excruciatingly painful but then I see life, everybody, and it looks like everybody is in the same condition and yet, they're happy and I'm not.
Comments (13)
I am sorry, but when did you establish this, and the validity of your limited and grossly oversimplified categories?
Well, these are the only three epistemic states I can think of. Can you think of others? I'd be happy to know.
Quoting Jeremiah
This above statement contradicts the previous statement you made.
You say I've oversimplified it but isn't simplification necessary for comprehension? Perhaps you can do better. I'd like to see it.
Anyway, I'm quite sure that if you zoom out of individual beliefs and examine the beliefs of humanity itself, you'll find the only label we can give it is confusion. For instance atheism-theism, realism-idealism, subjectivist-objectivist, etc. etc. Isn't this confusion?
I don't have an answer (sorry) but we seem to spend a lot of our time in situations like this, or wondering about things like "Which is better? Ignorance, Confusion or Wisdom?" It would seem obvious enough that wisdom is preferable to confusion and ignorance. Ignorance might be bliss if there is nothing that can be done to avert the impending doom. Don't worry about the impending doom you can do nothing about it. It is going to get every one of us in due time.
TMF: get out of the tub and pursue wisdom.
Now you have something worthwhile to wonder about: What is wisdom?
I think it is experiences from which we learned something useful, common sense, good advice, and a certain amount of reflection boiled down into nice golden brown gravy which goes well on mashed potatoes. Wisdom tastes like fried chicken gravy. It's delicious.
There is actually quite a bit of reasonably good canned wisdom around. Some of it is on the eye-level shelves where the highest profit items are displayed. Sometimes it's on the bottom shelf where the products that don't move go.
I gave you an example of reasonably good wisdom above: Ignorance is bliss when there is nothing you can do about the impending doom. Don't worry about it. If you happen to know what your impending doom is, then embrace it. You might as well, because it's yours to keep. Otherwise, occupy your mind with more pleasant matters, like the delicious chicken gravy smell of wisdom. Follow your knows [accidental pun, but it's worth keeping]. If something stinks, leave it alone.
Perhaps everybody knows this philosophical condition (thesis-antithesis) and may be this isn't confusion but something else. I don't know.
Anyway, thanks for your post.
Well two of your "epistemic states" are really the same thing, and your categories are so broad they are useless, plus you are just making up crap off the top of your head with no real research involved.
Quoting TheMadFool
No, it doesn't it.
Ok. I don't see why you disagree.
Knowing proceeds from ignorance to knowledge. Am I correct? And then we have confusion. These are real words from the dictionary and I simply want to categorize people into them and find out which of them are happiest?
I don't care about your categories, I thought I made that abundantly clear. I think they are worthless.
Also you have yet to demonstrate any cause/effect relationship to happiness. Your explanatory variables are so wide they each included everyone, and your response is as well. You need to stop "zooming out" and come back in for a closer look.
1. Ignorant people
2. Confused people
3. Knowledgable people
don't exist?
That is a weak straw-man.
I never said they didn't exist, I said several times that they are too broad to be of any use. I said it directly, more than once, in plain simple English.
These categories also exist:
People with skin.
People who breathe.
People with a face.
They are worthless categories, as they encompass everyone.
The categories ignorance and knowledge are ''too broad''? Isn't all human endeavor, philosophy in particular, an attempt to move from ignorance to knowledge?
Quoting Jeremiah
You make a good point and that's what is odd.